LIT withdraw from Munster Technological University idea

LIMERICK Institute of Technology has shelved plans to develop a Munster Technological University and will instead focus on developing its own autonomy and on deepening collaboration with its regional partners.

The move marks a significant turnaround from the college’s earlier stated intention to band together with Cork Institute of Technology and Institute of Technology Tralee.

LIT president Dr Maria Hinfelaar has insisted that the institution is merely following direction from Government.

“The landscape has changed, and we had to take a decision in light of evolving national policy,” explained Dr Hinfelaar of LIT, which was named Institute of Technology of the Year in the Sunday Times’ University Guide 2013.

“It is no good burying your head in the sand and saying what appeared to be the right decision a year ago, is now different, we have to face up to that.

“It would be very unwise for LIT to continue down a path which does not have policy or political support, and to be ploughing resources into that, only to find that the designation as a technical university is not going to happen. It is certainly not lowering our ambition level, this is actually strengthening our ambition to set the standard to be a very strong IT.”

The moves comes directly on foot of an address made by education minister Ruairi Quinn to higher education leaders at the end of last month, plus the publication of new policy documents by the Higher Education Authority.

These statements flew in the face of LIT’s adopted proposal to form a technological university, while also contradicting a report prepared by leading international experts on the configuration of the higher education sector and recommended a merger of third-level institutions.

Yet LIT already collaborate closely with regional institutions through the Shannon Consortium - University of Limerick, Mary Immaculate College and IT Tralee.

“What changed in November was the minister’s speech, and that is crucial to all of this, because in that speech it became very clear that the number one priority is forming regional clusters and in our case, we already have a strong collaboration with UL, Mary I and Tralee and the priority now needs to be to deepen that,” explained Dr Hinfelaar.

The LIT president did note that the IT sector had been subject to “mixed messages” from Government.

“We have had mixed messages since the publication of the Hunt report,” she explained.

“We need to respond to those messages, we need to influence them and we need to try and establish what is the best position for LIT and particularly for our students and for industry and community in the region.”

LIT recently unveiled its €200m plus ‘Campus 2030 Masterplan’, representing a significant stimulus for the region plus an anticipated minimum 30% expansion of its student body to over 9,000 full-time students and Dr Hinfelaar said this latest move would serve to strengthen that process.

“I think it will help,” she explained. “The plans for our campus masterplan were drawn up for LIT as an autonomous institution, as we currently are. We can sit down now as partners and speak for the autonomous LIT as we are now into the next number of decades, not having to bring in the complexity of whether we are going to be part of a bigger organisation.”

The decision has not been without controversy, with LIT lecturer Dr Frank Houghton claiming the decision not to proceed with the application for technological university status would perpetuate “social and educational inequalities in Ireland” and was a short-sighted decision that would “harm both the Institute and the people of the Mid-West in the long-term”.

Responding to the claims, Ms Hinfelaar said Mr Houghton was “entitled to express his personal view”, but pointed to the fact that the decision “went through a very rigorous process of discussion and it was a unanimous one”.

This website and its associated newspaper are full participating members of the Press Council of Ireland and supports the Office of the Press Ombudsman. This scheme in addition to defending the freedom of the press, offers readers a quick, fair and free method of dealing with complaints that they may have in relation to articles that appear on our pages. To contact the Office of the Press Ombudsman go towww.pressombudsman.ie or www.presscouncil.ie

Limerick Leader provides news, events and sport features from the Limerick area. For the best up to date information relating to Limerick and the surrounding areas visit us at Limerick Leader regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Limerick Leader requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.